Oscar Biscet Fights For “The Disintegration of the Dictatorship of the Castros” / 14ymedio, Mario Penton

Dr. Oscar Biscet Cuba after his press conference (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 4 June 2016 — On his first trip to the United States, former political prisoner Oscar Elias Biscet has shown once again that he doesn’t mince words: he has criticized President Barack Obama’s visit to Cuba, he has spoken in favor of repealing the Cuban Adjustment Act, and he has raised the possibility of a military coup on the island.

A doctor by profession, Biscet is backed by the Lawton Foundation, the National Democratic Party and the New Union for a Free Cuba Foundation. He presented the Emilia Project at a press conference this Saturday; the project is named in honor of Emilia Teurbe Toulon, who in the mid 19th-century first sewed the first Cuban flag. According to Biscet his initiative is a “project of freedom” that seeks “the disintegration of the dictatorship of the Castros.”

Biscet was sentenced to 25 years in prison for presenting research that denounced the abortion practices of the Cuban health system, but was released in 2011 and decided to stay on the island. Recently, the Cuban government allowed him to travel abroad “only once,” and the regime opponent is in the midst of a tour that has taken him to Spain and the United States. He has expressed fears for his life on his return to Cuba.

“The Emilia project declares that the Communist Constitution and the organs of state power are unconstitutional,” said the Biscet, arguing that the 1940 Constitution had been violated by Fidel Castro in 1959 with the arbitrary application of capital punishment. “In the first month they shot 900 people, 400 of whom were people who had nothing to do with the previous regime, simply because they dared to dissent,” he said.

The Emilia project has been signed by more than 3,000 Cubans with their names and identity card numbers. In it he demands that “the legal system of our country has as its base the democratic principles that prevail in other nations of the civilized world.”

Biscet argues that his movement is based on the 1940 Constitution which, since its amendment in 1976, has been an “eyesore” imposed by the Cuban government against the will of its own people.

Dr. Oscar Biscet from Cuba presented The Emilia Project in Miami

With regards to relations between the US and Cuba, Biscet believes that the steps taken by the current administration, including President Barack Obama’s visit to the island, “complicate the fight against the dictatorship.”

“It is a mistake to support a dictatorship that is falling. Free governments should demand freedom for Cuba,” said Biscet. “Emilia activists want to strengthen the people in their idea of achieving freedom, strengthening non-governmental organizations, seeking a multitude willing to end the dictatorship and execute a strategic plan to end this.”

According to the leader of the Emilia Project, there are several possible scenarios: that a group of “worthy” soldiers would put an end the regime (he would support this option), or that the son of Raul Castro, Alejandro Castro Espin, succeeds his father, or that there is a evolution towards a “softer dictatorship” in the style of the former Yugoslavia of Milosevic.

“Our purpose is to make a change from the base to the superstructure, a national insurrection,” said Biscet, who pointed out however the peaceful nature of his movement said. “There are many people who have hatred but we want justice to prevail.”

According to Biscet, the Cuban government has always lived on foreign aid, first from the Soviets and now Venezuela. “The Venezuelan people are starving like the Cuban people, not only materially starving but hungering for freedom,” he added. “Socialism has caused chaos and failure wherever it has been implemented, we knew that Venezuela would end like this.”

On the current immigration crisis the former political prisoner believes that “it is a human right to emigrate,” but regrets that the Cuban Adjustment Act allows people to continue leaving the island and then return in a year and a day “to speculate.” He said, “I agree with what Marco Rubio and Congressman Curbelo are doing; asylum must be for those who deserve it, the rest should stay in Cuba to fight.”

For Biscet “you can not enjoy a foreign freedom, with the resources of another country.”

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